


Re-Animator Requests

by Schrodingers_Rufus



Category: Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Blood, Body Horror, Character Death, Christmas, Coitus Interruptus, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Flash Fic, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jogging, M/M, Marriage, Medical Horror, Paris (City), Prompt Fic, Screenplay/Script Format, Song Lyrics, Undead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-11 23:14:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16861873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schrodingers_Rufus/pseuds/Schrodingers_Rufus
Summary: Over the years, I've taken several requests for short Re-Animator fics on Tumblr: mostly gen, sometimes morbid, occasionally bizarre. Here they are, in one place.





	1. Under Supervision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: October 18, 2016
> 
> Prompt: If you're still taking prompts at this late hour, how about a look at Herbert in Switzerland, under Dr. Gruber's supervision?

The boy was young, Gruber thought as he watched him furiously scribble down readings in his notebook, too young to be so far away from home. Too young to be so preoccupied with death. That was an old man’s job, and while Gruber was thankful to have found a kindred spirit so late in his life, he still worried about Herbert West. 

He’d tried to ask Herbert about what his home was like, back in America, but the boy merely scoffed and said, “Unsatisfying.” 

Still curious–unsatisfied, even–Gruber asked if he found Switzerland more to his tastes. Herbert West gave a polite, thin-lipped smile and simply said, “Very much so.”


	2. Re-Union

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: October 18, 2016
> 
> Prompt: Can we get some sappy danbert???
> 
> (Tagged: #not as sappy as anticipated but hopefully still a pleasant read for anon)

When Herbert showed up at his doorstep after thirteen years with a receding hairline and a bloodstained shirt–and he could still recognize the blood, despite what looked like Herbert’s attempts at washing it out–Dan couldn’t bring himself to be surprised.  
  
What did surprise him, however, was the expression on his face. The Herbert he knew was cold, unflappable even in the face of the murderous undead. But this Herbert, seen distorted through the peephole in Dan’s front door, looked tired. Still undeniably intense, but his shoulders drooped in a way Dan didn’t quite recognize. It concerned him, and he hated that it concerned him. 

Against his better judgment (but then again, Dan thought, when had he ever used that?), Dan opened the door. 

Herbert straightened up at that, and god, he looked just like he did before. He looked up at Dan, eyebrows raised expectantly. “Well?”  
  
Dan sighed. “Welcome home.”


	3. Matching Set

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: October 18, 2016
> 
> Prompt: Dan gets himself and Herbert matching Miskatonic University shirts and Herbert says he’s not going to wear his but he secretly wears it under his labcoat anyways because 'dan appreciates me'

The shirt was tacky. Made from a strange, clinging knit and emblazoned across the front with “MISKATONIC UNIVERSITY Est. 1793″, it unsettled Herbert West in a way that he couldn’t quite define. Dan had presented it to him with little fanfare, claiming it was an old design that the university bookstore had been giving away to make room for the new stock. He said he hadn’t known what size Herbert was and not to worry if it didn’t fit.   
  
It fit perfectly. 


	4. Unsettled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: September 26, 2016
> 
> Prompt:  
> “You could have died, what were you thinking?”  
> “I did die. Medically speaking, I’m still dead.”  
> “I mean, for good. What if…?”  
> “I don’t like to spend my time looking back and pondering over ‘what ifs’, Dan.”

Deep down, under all those layers of sarcasm and indifference, being dead bothered Herbert. It unsettled him. He was back and in full possession of his mental faculties, but his body felt…weak. Frailer than usual. Less coordinated. More sensitive to high temperatures. Regular doses of the reagent helped significantly, but Herbert West didn’t like to feel dependent on anything.

And he didn’t like the way Dan worried. He could see him out of the corner of his eye, wincing whenever Herbert fumbled with a flask or tripped walking up the basement stairs. He was _fine_. He wasn’t about to keel over again. He refused.


	5. We Belong Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: 2016
> 
> Prompt:  
> Consider the following: Herbert genuinely smiling, "You used my reagent, I knew you would." "...I didn't want you to die, and it was all I could think of to save you" and the deadpan snarker response of "How touching. I'd blush if my heart was still beating".

“…I would do the same for you, you know.”

“Oh, god. You _would_. You’d bring me back like one of those, those _things_.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. While certainly useful for gathering data on the reagent, one of our…”

“Monsters?”

“… _patients_ would be completely useless as a research assistant. I’d bring _you_ back, Dan. As best I could.”

“And what if I wanted to stay dead?”

“You’d be dead. You wouldn’t be capable of wanting anything.”


	6. Incident Report

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: January 10, 2015
> 
> Prompt: Okay okay Herbert and Dan in a Star Trek AU bring it on

Excerpt from Starfleet Incident Report 7.2.35.7906

  
“…Two lucid survivors retrieved (Human: 1, Bajoran: 1)…U.S.S. Miskatonic in salvageable condition; relocation to nearest Starfleet base recommended…Four cadavers to be sent to research team for immediate analysis…”

  
Excerpts from Starfleet Incident Investigation 4.9.35.6589: DANIEL CAIN (Doctor, U.S.S. Miskatonic); Interview conducted by KATHERINE MCMICHAELS (Counselor, U.S.S. Benevolent)

  
CAIN: We picked him up from a crash site on Volnar. They’d sent out a, a distress signal before they crashed. Once we, uh, got him conscious, he said he’d been the only survivor.

  
MCMICHAELS: But he wasn’t Starfleet. How did he end up on the ship? Was he still a patient?

  
C: [winces] No, no, he just [pause] he just stuck around, I guess. He’s a doctor, and we were really short on staff, so we just. Let him stay.

  
M: I hope you know that’s against protocol.

  
C: [puts head in hands] I know, I know.

  
…

  
MCMICHAELS: We found Cardassian bodies in the wreckage, but the ship had no known Cardassian crew. Do you know why?

  
CAIN: Oh, god. [more quietly] Oh, god.

  
M: Take your time.

  
C: I’m sorry, I just [pause] The Cardassians. We had a peaceful Cardassian ship—more of a runabout, really—dock with the Miskatonic, asking for supplies. Fuel, that kind of thing.

  
M: Did you know the name of the captain?

  
C: Hilok. Gul Kar Hilok.

  
M: A Gul, all the way out there?

  
C: [shrugs] I guess so.

  
M: I assume the meeting was not as diplomatic as you had all intended.

  
C: No, no, Captain Halsey was, was great. Those two got along like [pause] Well, they got along really well. The Cardassians got their supplies, and everything was just. Good. For a while.

  
M: You don’t seem convinced.

  
C: I mean. [pause] Wes and Meg—that’s my fiancée—hated him right off. He kept flirting with Meg, which was creepy by itself before I learned about the other stuff.

  
M: Other stuff?

  
C: He’d known about Meg even before they docked. He had files of, of photographs, voice clips. They were all in a data rod he had on him when he came onboard.

  
M: Do you think that’s why he chose your ship in particular?

  
C: [visibly distressed] I don’t know, I don’t know.

  
…

  
Clip from U.S.S. Miskatonic Security Feed 56:3:45:345609:5

  
G. HILOK: A toast.

  
CPT. HALSEY: A toast!

  
H: To the captain’s beautiful, capable, loving daughter, the obsession of all who fall under her spell.

…

  
Excerpt from Starfleet Incident Investigation 4.9.35.6589: DANIEL CAIN (Doctor, U.S.S. Miskatonic); Interview conducted by KATHERINE MCMICHAELS (Counselor, U.S.S. Benevolent)

  
MCMICHAELS: I know this is stressful for you, Doctor, but we need to go over what happened, step by step. 

  
CAIN: Okay. [puts his face in his hands] Okay. I don’t know if [pause] You’ll probably get better information if you ask Wes. I was there for a lot of it, but not—

  
M: [interrupting] We’re asking him, too, once he recovers. Don’t worry.

  
C: Alright. [takes a long breath] Wes, he, he’d been doing medical research before he came to us. He wanted me to help him, and I said yes.

  
M: What did this research consist of?

  
C: Death. Uh, life, I mean. Resuscitating patients after clinical brain death.

  
M: Why, that’s fantastic!

  
C: [shouting] No!

  
M: [pauses to take notes] Was Herkat Wes’s research what caused the incident on the Miskatonic?

  
C: Yes? Yes and, and, yes. It did.

  
M: You don’t seem so sure.

  
…

  
Clip from U.S.S. Miskatonic Security Feed 32:1:75:097589:25

  
[WES and CAIN stand before a makeshift examining table in a storage room off the medical wing. A mutilated black cat lies convulsing on the table.]

  
CAIN: He was dead!

  
WES: Twice.

  
…  
Excerpt from Starfleet Incident Investigation 4.9.35.6589: DANIEL CAIN (Doctor, U.S.S. Miskatonic); Interview conducted by KATHERINE MCMICHAELS (Counselor, U.S.S. Benevolent)

  
MCMICHAELS: What would Gul Hilok want with Wes’s serum?

  
CAIN: How should I know? Fame? Fortune? Hot dead girls? I don’t know!

  
M: But you claim Hilok died in the process of stealing the formula.

  
C: Yeah. Wes, he. [voice cracks, takes a deep breath] I only saw what he looked like afterward. When he was trying to kill us.

  
M: After he was killed, you mean.

  
C: Yeah. [laughs quietly] He was [mimes decapitation] walking around with his head in a tray.

  
M: I’m sorry to ask, but you do know how unbelievable this sounds, don’t you?

  
C: Of course I know! But you’ve gotta believe me, alright? It happened! He killed my, he killed [trails off]

  
…

  
Clip from U.S.S. Miskatonic Security Feed 32:1:75:574939:90  
[HILOK and WES stand in the same storage room. The cat still lies in the same tray as before.]

  
WES: You  _butcher_!

  
G. HILOK: I don’t care what little rumors you’ve heard about—

  
W: [interrupting] I didn’t hear anything! I was there! You used your network of informants; you  _stole_  medical secrets and used them to torture my people! I had to treat some of the few survivors  _your_  men handed back. There was barely anything left to treat!

  
H: Ah, a resistance man, are we?

  
W: Of course.

  
H: Your earring has obviously seen better days. Am I to assume it was damaged in some heroic skirmish against a  _villainous_  Cardassian oppressor?

  
W: No. This is how it’s meant to be.

  
H: Awfully disrespectful, isn’t it? To wear a severed earring. Not that I’d know all about your kind’s little cults.

  
W: Disrespectful? [scoffs] We have empirical proof of the Prophets’ existence,  _not_  their divinity. I only  _worship_  that which has been proven without a doubt, through rigorous experimentation.

  
H: [laughs] A Bajoran atheist!

  
W: You oversimplify. Meanwhile, as you lie and steal and climb the Cardassian social ladder under your false pretenses, I have taken the dead, I have reversed the  _flaws_  in the so-called Prophets’ design, and _I have given them new life_.

  
H: And now we get to the point. For a scientist, you do seem rather distractible.

  
W: [snidely] I apologize for sidetracking your transparent attempt at academic plagiarism with accusations of _war crimes_.

  
…

  
Excerpt from Starfleet Incident Investigation 4.9.35.6589: DANIEL CAIN (Doctor, U.S.S. Miskatonic); Interview conducted by KATHERINE MCMICHAELS (Counselor, U.S.S. Benevolent)

  
MCMICHAELS: And you say Hill used the serum to—

  
CAIN: [interrupting] First, he brought back the bodies in the morgue. Then, he ordered his soldiers to, to fire on, on everyone.

  
M: The ship’s crew?

  
C: [nods] Everyone they saw. They, he [pause] he brought them back. He tried. And then he wired them all up to come after the rest of us. Especially Meg.

  
M: He wanted Meg killed?

  
C: No, no, he wanted her alive. At least for a little while. He wanted to [trails off] We stopped him, though, Wes and I. I tried to get Meg out of there, and then she [goes quiet]

  
M: It’s alright. If you can answer me, though, I want to ask a few questions about Meg.

  
C: [silent]

  
M: The coroners examined her body, and we saw multiple bruises on the neck and damage to the lungs, indicating a death by asphyxiation. However, our scans also indicated a heart attack and large quantities of a foreign substance in her bloodstream.

  
C: I tried to save her.

  
M: You tried to bring her back.

  
C: I tried to  _save her_ , okay? She couldn’t be gone. I loved her. I love her. She  _can’t_  be gone! I’ll, I’ll try again—

  
M: [interrupting] You most certainly will not.

  
C: You’ve gotta let me out of here! She’s still out there, and they’ve got to be fresh! [grabs onto the front of MCMICHAELS’s uniform] The deterioration of the, the cells in the brain—You’ve  _got_  to let me see her!

  
M: Guards! Quickly! Guards!

  
INTERVIEW CONCLUDED


	7. Motivational Energy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: December 31, 2014
> 
> Prompt: Dan takes Herbert running or leads him in aerobic exercise (with lots of motivational energy!).

Herbert wheezed, doubling over.

Noticing out of the corner of his eye, Dan jogged back up to him. “Want to call it quits?”  
  
Herbert tilted his head up to glare hatefully at Dan.

“I’ve got some water.” He held out a Nalgene bottle, wet with condensation. Think you can make it back home?“

"Of  _course_  I can, I just…” He took a few more deep breaths. “I…”

"Okay, that’s it. We’re walking.” He set the bottle next to Herbert on the sidewalk. “But don’t stop too long. Your muscles are gonna cramp up.”

“You think I don’t  _know_  that?” Herbert stood up all at once, grabbing the bottle. He blinked a few times, visibly dizzy.

"Alright, alright.” Dan grabbed the front of his own sweat-stained sleeveless shirt, trying to get some air circulation. Herbert shifted uncomfortably in his own t-shirt and shorts (shorts!), both borrowed from a sibling of Dan’s. “The sun’s starting to get pretty high, so we should—”

“ _Yes, Dan._ ”

“—really be heading back. And if you try to use this—” He gestured at Herbert, still breathing heavily. “—as a reason why we shouldn’t try again in a couple days, you’re gonna be corpse-hunting alone for a week.”

Herbert stared, visibly offended. “Fine.  _Fine._ ”

“Look, neither one of us is living forever if we’re this far out of shape.”

“ _Fine, Dan._ Let’s just go home.”


	8. The Worst Christmas Yet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: December 23, 2014
> 
> Prompt: Dan and Herbert on the run - the worst Christmas yet.

Herbert returned from the gas station with something behind his back, smirking like a young child who had just emptied the cookie jar.

“ _Herbert._ ”

“Daniel.” He smirked wider.

If Herbert was going to act like a child, Dan supposed he would have to be the parent. He held out his hand expectantly.

With a high, choked giggle, Herbert handed over his prize: An air freshener shaped like a tiny pine tree.

Dan stared blankly.

Herbert forced down another laugh. “Well, we’re certainly not fitting an entire tree in the back, not with all our equipment.”

Dan continued to stare. 

“ _Fa la la la la—_ “ A squeaky snort. "— _la la la la.”_

"Oh, for god’s sake, it’s not—”

“ _Deck the halls with Prof. Hill’s entrails…_ ”

“Already? Herbert, I should be spending today with my family, not—”

“ _Your cat’s dead, forget the details…_ ”

Dan buried his face in his hands. After a  few moments of silence, he mumbled an off-tune, “ _Fa la la la la la la la la._ ”

Herbert’s grin stretched ear to ear. “ _Had to steal a rental pickup…_ ”

Dan whistled the next part before continuing. “ _If I sing, now will you shut up?”_

“Only if you  _buy us some figgy pudding, now buy us some figgy pudding, now buy us some figgy pudding. The Ralph’s is right here._ ”

"I never pegged you for a Christmas caroler.”

“I never pegged you for someone who would drive the getaway car. And I truly enjoy pudding, Dan.”

“And watching me suffer, I’m guessing.”

“You wound me. And on a holiday, no less.”

“Fine, I’ll get some pudding. But just for that, I’m also getting you a  fruitcake.”


	9. Interruptions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: December 20, 2014
> 
> Prompt: Meg and Dan - they're having loud sex and think they're home alone. Then Herbert walks in and tells them to keep it down, because he has SCIENCE to do.

Herbert West rapped sharply on the door.

“Will you two keep  _quiet_?”

There was a loud rustling and a thump.

“Herbert? Are you—”

“I can hear you from the basement. Either satisfy your carnal needs more quietly or not at all.”

“Your  _carnal needs?_ ” A female voice. That Halsey woman, presumably.

A deeper groan. “Herbert, you…It’s three in the morning.”

“And clearly nobody in this house is sleeping.”

A pause. A shifting of sheets.

“We’ll keep it down.”

“ _Dan—!_ ” The woman sounded shrill, irritated. Served her right. If she would interrupt his work with her moaning, he would interrupt hers.

“Sorry. We’ll be quieter.”

“Thank you, Dan.” He hoped he softened his voice enough. He was never quite sure how to make it sound sincere. “I’m glad we could work this out like responsible adults.”

Back to the basement. There would be no more interruptions that night.


	10. Assistant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted December 20, 2014
> 
> Prompt: Rufus Lives AU - Herbert kills Dan instead to use as a test subject, keeps Rufus as a cuddly lab assistant.

Herbert’s eyes traveled slowly down Dan’s long, lean body, strapped tight to the makeshift examining table with belts stolen from his own closet. The dark eyes, the high cheekbones, the muscles taut and pronounced from long hours of manual labor, both in the emergency room and behind the wheel of a taxi cab.

It was all dead tissue now, of course.

Herbert detested killing as a matter of principle, but Dan learned too much too quickly. He’d threatened to send Herbert to the police, and nothing Herbert said could sway him. Maybe, in another life, Herbert could have won him over.

Herbert smiled slowly.  _Another life, indeed._

Rufus butted his tiny head against Herbert’s leg, mewling softly. With a chuckle, Herbert hoisted him up awkwardly to the height of the table. He shifted the cat’s weight to one arm and grabbed the recorder with his free hand. 

“The time is twelve twenty-five p.m. Specimen in peak physical condition. Male, age twenty-five. Height…six-four. Moment of death was twelve-twenty p.m.”

_“Meow.”_

“Make a note of it, Rufus.”


	11. Black Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: December 2, 2014
> 
> Prompt: Herbert tries so hard to think of what to get Dan. What goes through his mind as he walks through a mall and sees various products?

Herbert’s shoulders were hunched as he scurried through the packed shopping mall. Given the season, he reminded himself that he really should have expected this, this…crushing mass of humanity that boxed him in on all sides. At least this shouldn’t take long. He just needed to purchase some small token of his appreciation for Dan, and then he could leave this godforsaken shopping plaza for the next eleven months.

Unfortunately, finding the proper token was a bit more of a challenge than he expected. Tie? Insensitive. Dan never wore suits; he would have no use for it. Book? Frivolous. He couldn’t think of any literature worth reading that Dan didn’t already own.

A small poster taped to the mall directory caught his eye. “Free to a good home.”

Herbert’s lips quirked upward in something that, to the untrained eye, might have resembled a smile. Yes. This would do nicely.


	12. Something Old, Something New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: November 27, 2014
> 
> Prompt: fic rec: Old Dan meets New Dan.
> 
> (This was a response to a "three-sentence fic" meme.)

A new patient was admitted to Miskatonic, fresh from the prison riots. He emerged from the ambulance clutching a severed head (they said they couldn’t pry it away from him) and babbling something about being a doctor. It wasn’t until Dan heard the name “West” that he let the fear reach his face.


	13. Paperwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: December 23, 2014
> 
> Prompt: (Fanfic prompts) Herbert West and Dan Cain - Dan discovers that Herbert filed paperwork to have them legally married so Dan can't be compelled to testify against Herbert in the future. How does Dan react?
> 
> (This was a response to a three-sentence fic meme.)

“Did it  _ever_  occur to you,” Dan shouted, gesturing wildly as he paced in circles, “that I might want to settle down with someone one day?”

Herbert furrowed his brow. “But you already have.”


	14. Tourist Attraction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: December 15, 2014
> 
> Prompt: Herbert and Dan visit the catacombs of Paris

“Disgusting,” Herbert muttered under his breath.

“What?” Dan lowered his voice, too, so as not to intrude on the others in their tour group. “ _This_  is what the great Herbert West thinks is disgusting? Dry bones?”

Herbert hung back, allowing the rest of the tour group to pass them. The stale air hung thick between them. He leaned in close and whispered, “All this  _waste_.”


	15. Layering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: December 15, 2014
> 
> Prompt: Dan buys ugly Christmas sweaters for him and Herbert.

Herbert said nothing, just fixed Dan with a glare that spoke volumes.   
  
“C'mon, West, it’s just for one night.”

Nothing.  
  
“It’s freezing down there. You could use another layer.”

“…Fine.” Herbert ripped the sweater out of Dan’s hands like it had personally offended him.

When the sweater reappeared the next morning in a pile in front of Dan’s bedroom door, its happy green-and-white reindeer pattern soaked red-brown, Dan couldn’t say he was surprised.


	16. Fluffy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: December 2, 2014
> 
> Prompt: ( Im sorry but Im still stuck on this...) FLUFFY HAIR HERBERT. What does Dan think of this?

“What are you staring at?” Herbert snapped.  
  
Dan glanced down at the open thorax of a thirty-five-year-old woman splayed out on the slab in front of them. Her heart, hooked up to a thin tube of reagent, beat erratically. “Erm, it’s nothing. Nothing, Herbert.”

After all, if he mentioned it, Herbert would probably cut it all off.


	17. The Man, The Bride, The Musical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: January 11, 2016
> 
> Prompt: I'm terrible at fic prompts because I can never communicate what I want in writing but we need to start working on the musical script for Bride of Re-Animator the Musical ;) jk
> 
> (Tagged: #*casually rips off the meter from A Little Priest for the whole second half*)

HERBERT  
Dan. 

  
HERBERT (SINGING)  
I know you’ll want to stop before I start but let me just say one more thing–

  
DAN  
What.  _What_. I’m listening. 

  
HERBERT (SINGING)  
What was it that you liked about Meg? 

  
DAN  
Nope, I’m gone. 

  
HERBERT (SINGING)  
Was it in her eyes?  
Was it in her hair?  
Was it in her… ?

HERBERT mimes an exaggerated female figure. 

DAN  
No! Please, just don’t–

  
HERBERT (SINGING)  
Was it in her mind?  
Though I think you’ll find  
That what’s left of her mind has been kind of, well, just…  
Reassigned. 

  
DAN (SINGING)  
To the grave, you mean?

  
HERBERT  
No, no. To a shelf in the Miskatonic medical research department. Third floor, second door on the right. 

  
DAN  
What?

  
HERBERT (SINGING)   
How about her heart?

HERBERT pulls Meg’s heart from a pocket in his coat. DAN is transfixed. 

I see that’s a start.   
For what’s left of her heart would you think about just  
Taking part?   
In a little test?  
Truly for the best. 

  
DAN  
For the best, yes…


	18. Like Any Other Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted: January 11, 2016
> 
> Prompt: Where was Dan the night of Herbert's arrest? Why was Herbert alone in the suburbs?
> 
> (Note from original post: I have a few ideas about what could have happened to Dan that night. Here’s one of them.)

Dan blinked awake slowly. His eyes ached. His whole  _head_  ached.

Fighting a painful twinge in his neck and tasting bile on his tongue, he sat up with a groan. The examination table was overturned. Glass and gore lay scattered across the concrete floor. He recognized the heaving mass of one of Herbert’s smaller doodles as it tried to limp to the safer, darker reaches of the room.

Herbert was gone.

That was never a good sign.

The last he remembered, their newest patient–a post office worker who had “seen too much”, as Herbert claimed, when delivering Dan’s package of mail-order socks–had been yanking at his restraints, screaming and spitting blood in the way Dan had grudgingly started to consider “normal”. Dan examined the restraints. Swearing under his breath, he could see the frayed edges where they had snapped.

With a shout, Dan kicked at the overturned examination table. It slid an unsatisfying few inches.

The corpse (and Dan still gagged at the thought, even after all these years) must have taken off after it knocked him out. Herbert, inevitably, must have followed it.  _Him._  It.

Resigned to playing bodyguard for West against yet another of his own experiments, Dan moved to ascend the stairs to the ground floor.

Then he heard the sirens.


End file.
